Coffee Shop In Progress

In April of 2010 two friends moved to New York and opened a small espresso bar in SoHo. I was honored when they offered me the opportunity to build and help design their space. These are a few pictures of the process.

All of the lumber for this project is from a single tree. This is what it looked like when it got to the shop. It was a very exciting day.

Jon, Wes and I making the first cuts into the slabs of walnut, which will eventually become the stand up table and the window bar.


Each piece of wood wraps the entire length of the bar. This was both fun and challenging. Because each piece is so unique I tried to pick where I placed them very carefully to show of their natural beauty as best I could. I'm really pleased at how this came out.


This compound miter was more difficult than I expected. Luckily the wrapping of the grain and slight angle of everything overshadow the difficulty of the cut. In the end I think it looks good.


To figure out the angles for the Corian base of the stand up table, I used the Walnut top and some small pieces of ply wood to help find what was the best looking and most comfortable to stand at.


This is one of the craziest clamp ups I've ever done. All these clamps were actually needed to pull everything together.

This is the piece of walnut that will be the front window counter. This is what it looks like before the Tung oil finish is rubbed on. I love the purple and blue colors throughout the piece.

Coffee Shop

Coffee Shop, 147 Sullivan St. New York, NY. Walnut

When I was learning to be a cabinetmaker in San Francisco, the shop I was working for built some of the triangular benches that were spread throughout the new DeYoung museum. It was so interesting to watch people sit on and interact with the things that I had helped make. I get the same feeling with this space, but even more so. The way people react to solid wood furniture is one of the most gratifying parts of what I do. While the size of this coffee shop is small, the attention to detail and the quality of material make this a comfortable and welcoming place to be. I feel so proud to have been part of this project.


This is a stand up table with a black Corian base, AKA the heaviest table ever. With a totally beautiful piece of Walnut, the wood does all the work. I love that so many people have had so many conversations and so much coffee at this table.


Thank you George Nakashima for your decorative, yet structurally genius bow tie joint. This is a close up of the stand up table.


This is the stand up bar in the front window. It's hard to see, but we actually found a bullet in the piece of wood. Because the slug was solid lead, it was able to make it through joiner, planer, and sanding process without damaging anything. I counted the rings back and it was 75 years ago!

While less dramatic, the employee side of this bar still has interesting wood things.

The Tung oil finish give the wood a deep rich color that only oil finishes can do. Labor intensive, but the final result is unrivaled by any spray finish.

And to think that this is where it all started...